Venerable Bhanthe, it is your turn...

With the heightened attention to education reforms, there is a deluge of opinions, praise, and criticism of the so-called proposals in all media.

- BY GEEWANANDA GUNAWARDANA, Pu.D.

The moment I typed education reforms, the all-pervading AI assistant residing in my laptop asked what I wished to know. In response to my reply, it spewed out a six-page essay. It captured the ongoing discussion well, but I would not go on a limb to say that it was an intelligent analysis of the topic. Nevertheless, according to my knowledge, what is brought up below on this topic has not come up in the ongoing discussion: the interplay between science and religion in children’s education.

The overemphasis of STEM subjects, i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, at the expense of religion, history, and aesthetics has become a contentious point. All sides of the argument have good reasons, and the policymakers appear to have made hasty revisions lowering the temperature of the debate. However, the proverbial elephant in the room is the question, can science alone save humanity from the impending perils? The answer is an emphatic no; an economics professor put it this way:

“Many scientists, without realising the severe limitations of scientific knowledge, have helped to promote an overoptimistic attitude toward science, believing that science will solve all the human problems. Behind this optimism are hidden values and beliefs that man can conquer nature, that human wellbeing depends solely on the abundance of material goods, that ethical problems can be resolved without the need for ethics. All these beliefs about science have contributed to potentially disastrous consequences, such as global warming, unhealthy air and water, and unsustainable economic growth” (Otto Chang, 2007).